I received the message from AOL's Accessibility Help:
As a deafened adult, I rely on technology to keep in touch with my friends and family. I rarely use my telephone / TTY anymore thanks to Instant Message (IM). Since it's a visual medium, I have no difficulty hearing/understanding when using this service. I have filled my list with 160 names of friends and family and use it to reach out and chat with friends or to ask a quick question of co-workers. - Ken Arcia
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IM is the most important part for the Deaf to have two-way, text-based communications in our everyday life, with greatly advantage for Deaf people using this service as a starting point for all communications. Here are the big IM providers:
AOL Instant Messenger
MSN Messenger
Yahoo Messenger
Skype
Jabber
ICQ
Google Talk
I believe that AOL IM is the top choice provider for Deaf - the popular of all. Because of, the Deaf people took adavantage for ease to use GUI interface on IM and its buddy lists to see more and more Deaf people logged in than any IM providers.
Deaf people uses IM in different places - home, work and travel to have an adavantage of using communication with hearing people, rather than having interpreter or paper & pen ready.
Without IM as today, I might had struggling to earn bachelor's degree, tough to find a perfect couple, and I would not be in my career work.
Source: Wikipedia - Instant Messenger
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